Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments 5yo tested with WPPSI = not gifted

Hi all
My 5yo was tested at the school this week with the WPPSI (I'm assuming). The psychologist rang me today and told me that he is in the average range, with verbal abilities somewhat higher. So he's not testing as gifted.
Now he's no prodigy, but he knew his colours at age 2, he was speaking quite complex sentences at age 3, and he learns things very quickly. I was grade-skipped at school, and I thought he'd inherited my giftedess.
OK, so it's possible he's not gifted, but average? Average seems so unlikely to me that I'm questioning the validity of the test.
If anyone can give me any feedback on this issue, please do. I know my perception of my son can be coloured by my own 'want' to see him identified as gifted. I'm aware of that. But even so, I find it hard to believe that my bright son is 'average'. Is there a chance that the test just didn't work for him?
Or am I just deluding myself?

I would ask for the full test results with all the subscores. You may find something that looks more like 2e than "average."

I can't believe yet that I've been so wrong about him. I saw him when he was 10 months old deliberatly turn a book the right way up. I have it captured on video. It wasn't something random, he thought about it, and turned it the right way up and started 'reading' it, turning the pages.
ElizabethN: thanks, I will be getting a report and if the subscores aren't there I'll ask for them.
When I do, what might a 2e set of scores look like? High in some, low in others? Discrepancies?

I posted this by accident in the wrong forum, so I've posted it again in the Identification and Testing forum

Giftedness is not really a binary quality, but the line needs to be drawn somewhere for administrative purposes. Gifted is often defined as IQ >= 130, and the average IQ is 100. Someone with an IQ of 115 may not be eligible for a school gifted program, but he is still above average in intelligence.

Thanks for your replies.
I wasn't testing him for a gifted program. We don't have such luxuries in the part of the world we live. The policy of the Australian state in which I live is to identify gifted students as early as possible, so that is why I told the education system that I thought he was gifted, and they eventually arranged this test.

I have a DS5 who we suspect is gifted but hasn't been tested. The one thing he has beyond all things is a thirst for learning and high motivation. Whether he tests gifted eventually or not...i believe smart + highly motivated is often an easier road than gifted+ laid back/complacent/or terrified to take risks due to fear of failure.

I have a nephew who tested gifted as a youngster and barely passed tenth grade...and his sister tested high averageand got straight As in 8th grade this year.

If I were you I would do what ElizabethN suggests...get the scores in front of you. The actual scores are more telling than just the IQ measure.

You haven't been "wrong" about your child, whether or not he has a high IQ! I think sometimes we get very hung up on #s, but really... truly.. motivation, curiosity, drive, passion - those are qualities that feed into success and achievement and they can't be measured by an IQ test and perhaps more importantly, a person does *not* have to have a sky-high IQ to have them.

I also agree - ask for the test report, with numbers for subtest scores.

And keep in mind that "not gifted" according to the school might just mean "doesn't meet our very specific cut-off" - our EG ds was also proclaimed "not gifted" twice by our school district - once in spite of scoring > 99.9th percentile on his IQ test but slightly less on his achievement test (he is a 2e kid).. another time because he scored lower on the CogAT, which is a test where HG/EG kids sometimes don't achieve scores similar to other tests.

Let us know if you find out more info on the test -

polarbear

I could have typed that exactly for our 2e child; that's exactly what her scores looked like including with the CogAT and we, too, had quite an uphill battle to get her school system to recognize HG+ scores as gifted at all.

What I'd be looking for, based on our experience of repeat IQ and achievement tests with a 2e kid and talking with other parents of 2e kids, is wild variation in scores between and within indices and a lot of fluctuation between different testing sessions. For instance, our child had some indices that looked mildly gifted, but had scores ranging from high average to the 99.9th percentile. In a child who is, say, moderately gifted not highly gifted+ that might shift down on all parts a bit. As an example, you might get a 30th percentile score averaged with a 98th percentile score which makes the whole index look high average or just plain average.

Since our child is 11, she's also taken a lot of achievement tests over the years in school. Along with repeat administrations of IQ, we have a distinct pattern of wild fluctuation from one testing to the next. We've seen achievement scores go from high average to the 99th in the course of a few months as well as the reverse (upper 90s to average). Two administrations of the same IQ test one year apart led to parts that were at the ceiling one time being high average the next and the reverse for other parts.

Someone who is only looking at the overall number would fail to see a much larger picture here.

That said, like others have mentioned, even if your child is not 2e and is bright but not technically gifted, he is still the same child. 2e is not something I'd want truly. I know a lot of very successful children academically some of whom are straight-A students, some of whom are subject accelerated, etc. who are not gifted. Average or bright-average with the right personal characteristics can sometimes take one a lot further than 2e and/or highly gifted.